Chapter Twenty-Seven

Edward Foxhaven arrives early at Nowhere House intent on exposing wrongdoing. Inside, after aggressive questioning, he encounters an animated skeleton dressed in Lillian’s clothes—the girls’ desperate attempt to prove Lillian is “alive.” The sight reveals the truth: the bones are real, Lillian is dead. Panicking, Edward insults them and is chased into the garden shed, where the girls lock him in and confiscate his phone.

Mika and Jamie return to chaos: Edward imprisoned, Lillian’s bones in a heap, and guardians rattled. The girls confess their plan; Terracotta admits Edward now knows everything. Jamie fears that Lillian’s will must be enforced and the children taken. A confounding potion won’t undo what Edward has seen.

Mika and Jamie enter the shed to reason with Edward. He threatens police action and criminal accusations. Mika refuses to be cowed; she binds him with conjured vines and warns she will not let him harm the family. Shaken but resolute, Mika releases the spell and leaves him terrified into silence—for now.

Outside, they weigh options: they cannot kill or indefinitely imprison Edward, nor erase his knowledge. Jamie grimly concludes they must let him go. Mika fixates on “turn back time and make him forget,” realizing there is one perilous solution left.

She proposes a dangerous alternative everyone dislikes but accepts as necessary. To protect the children and their found family, Mika calls a specific, formidable contact for help, setting in motion a risky plan to neutralize Edward’s threat.